Advert Analysis: Queens of the Stone Age - Like Clockwork

Advert Analysis (Queens Of The Stone Age - Like Clockwork)

To gain a more in depth understanding of what makes an advert successful I am going to analyse another album advertisement taken from the front page of a website. I am going to analyse the design focusing on the typeface, font, colour, and composition and discuss how each of these is important to the success of the advert and how they relate to the genre of music. 

The advert I have chosen to analyse is for the band Queens of the Stone age that are a alternative/psychedelic rock band and the album Like Clockwork. 

Artist: Queens Of The Stone Age

Album: ...Like Clockwork

Genre: Alternative Rock

Released: June 2013

The above image shows an image of the advert that I have taken from the Queens of the Stone Age website. As you can see before entering the website an advertisement is displayed that advertises the latest album ...Like Clockwork. 

The background is a solid red colour which is good as it keeps the advert simple as does not distract any of the viewers attention from the important information in the advert. Also, red is a fairly gender neutral colour so this suggests that the record company are not aiming their product at any gender in particular. The image in the right hand side of the advert shows graphic art designed by a british artist called Boneface. It shows a man and woman in an an embrace with the man wearing a skeleton mask and the woman crying. The art is cartoon like and graphic, with a lot of detail in the hair and facial features. The full image is in black and white with high contrast making it stand out against the bold red background. However, the womans tears are a bright blue colour which stands out against her white face. This results in the audience noticing them as a primary focus of the art. The image is based on a publicity still for the 1931 film Dracula, which makes sense in the advert as it is portraying the idea of Dracula through the graphic art. 

The typeface on the advert shows the band name (Queens of the Stone Age) in a black, narrow, widely spaced font. It is slightly bolder than the album title (...Like Clockwork) which is situated directly underneath it. The album title is also in the same font as the band name. Having both the bands name and album name on the advert immediately tells the audience what the advert is, which increases the chances on them taking an interest in it. The words OUT NOW are the biggest font on the advert which grabs the viewers attention instantly informing them that they can purchase it straight away. Below this is hyperlinks to websites that the album can be purchased from. These are in white font which stand out against the red background and separate themselves from the black text. Despite these being in a smaller font they are still eye catching as the white colour breaks up the advert and fits in nicely with the black and white graphic art of the advert. Underneath this in a small font is a paragraph telling more about the history of the album. This is a strong part of the advert as the band name and album name will have caught the audiences attention and if they are interested they look more closely and can read about the album - another selling technique that record companies use. 

When buying the album the websites offer the chance to buy the album on CD, vinyl, or deluxe vinyl. This increasing selling chances and profit as the album can be purchased at the normal standard price, but it is likely that the audience will go for the deluxe version. Also, a limited edition of the album was released in which the background of the album was blue instead of red. Again this technique is used by record companies to increase the chance of sales as the audience are more likely to buy a limited edition version because of the idea of owning something that now many people own. (See image below).